Doctor Who - Waters of Mars Review

[chloris]

I saw the episode this morning and it broke my brain. *ouch* I've been pretty much been avoiding lj all day so that I could write up my rather meta-heavy thoughts without having them be influenced by everyone else's thoughts. Now I'm off to read through the posts on my flist!

Comments

[papilio_luna]

Excellent meta, and I agree on all points.

My love for Ten is boundless, but part of his character has always been a god-complex (lonely god or vengeful god, take your pick, it's two sides of the same coin), and a certain, albeit usually justified, hubris. He's been on this road for a long time, and it's one of the reasons I love him as a character. I don't have to find a character 100% admirable to find them fascinating and want to watch them as much as possible (good thing for it too, given that two of my other favourite characters are Dexter Morgan and Gregory House--a serial-killer and a pathetic douchebag). A character whose motivations are always good and pure and rational is boring. A character who tries to be good but has serious cracks in their character and is haunted by a dark past--that's interesting.

And I've never felt that the show presented the Doctor as 100% admirable, nor presented these tendencies of his as good things. If I was going to pick something that for him would become his tragic flaw (in the Greek sense of the word), I'd say that this trait would be a pretty good candidate. It's been hinted (and anvilled) at for a long, long time, and the writing has often stated, sometimes rather explicitly, that he's pretty much always on the razor's edge between sanity and madness.

Interesting note about the companions, and you're right, they are rarely able to actually stop him. What they do do for him is force him to give reasons for his actions. They're an audience for him, and a bit of a Greek chorus. Narratively, of course, they're there to ask questions, but beyond just the structure of the story, the character himself sort of needs someone to ask those questions because otherwise he'll just ignore them, and think he already knows the answers anyway. I think more than stopping him, they ground him.

[chloris]

A character whose motivations are always good and pure and rational is boring. A character who tries to be good but has serious cracks in their character and is haunted by a dark past--that's interesting.

*nods* To excite my interest, I need a character with conflicts and a potential for darkness. I didn't think that we'd see more than flashes but I don't love the character less because they went there. Instead, I love him and the show even more.

It's actually kind of amazing just how arrogant and controlling that the Doctor has always been for a hero. (some regenerations more than others certainly) RTD certainly thought this through. Take a Doctor who's the last of his kind, give him an extra big dose of god-complex, and take away all his support. What do you get? Waters on Mars where the Doctor decides to fuck the rules and save everyone he can.

I think more than stopping him, they ground him.

I like this point. Everyone talks about them stopping him but what they really do is ground him. When he spends too much time alone, he has trouble seeing the small things anymore. Also, they regularly inform him that he's not god, which is good for him.